Friday, July 31, 2015

So, looking back at what I wrote yesterday, I have not been disappointed. I knew going into this that I had to position myself to receive what was available to me. It’s like… Apple fans, they’re camp for days to get the latest iDevice, they’ll come with food and drink and tents, crazy as it may be, they’re preparing to receive something.

Being an Android user we wait for all the big stuff at Google to come through which is just as exciting, but we just don’t have on single unified product that we can all get behind and support.Conventional wisdom states that hyping something up only creates unrealistic expectations and while that’s certainly true of worldly things, how can we create expectations too high for God to meet?So, day three, the last few days have just been mind blowing, I feel like if I hear any more my brain might just begin to leak out of my ears due to the sheer mental overload.

We have had Ps Glyn Barrett talk about all the places that the enemy camps and gets into your world. Jeremy Johnson built upon this with having the keys to the kingdom and having the authority not just to unlock things in our world, but to unlock things in other people's worlds too in his talk entitled ‘Energy’. Ps Chris Hill to us to another level as he spoke on the subject of ‘Full Recovery’ absolutely amazing stuff. He taught us that when we are by our self we must not let our situation determine our reaction, but we let our revelation of our situation dictate our reaction and instead of magnifying what we see as problems but magnifying God instead we can recover all.The action isn't just in the seminars either however, fellowship is happening in all areas of the conference. There’s sharing of what we each got from the messages and how it relates to our lives, the spontaneous sharing of mess and messages, the establishment of visions and dreams.All in all it’s just (‘another brick in the wall’, sorry), such an amazing thing, to see your expectations be met by God. I've personally been feeling run down in recent months, but I'm feeling energised and refreshed, ready to take on whatever is going to be thrown at me.Yesterday I spoke about building to almost re-inventing oneself. It wasn't that eloquent, but little sleep and lots of sugar… Anyway I really feel that there’s an internal change going on and that is fantastic. Well, upgrade, I think I mentioned yesterday that change could be good or bad, an upgrade is a deliberate improvement over what was before by an author.So here we are, one day to go, still can’t wait for all that’s going to happen but very excited about what has already happened. Sometimes in the tech world when something big is about to be released, something known as a ‘pre-release’ is sent out, and it’s not given the final number, but it’s given a number version close, often something like 2.9 in anticipation of 3.0.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

It's conference week here where I live and last year was the first year that I went to the conference and it felt like my entire life had been rebuilt from scratch. I wasn't ready for it, didn't know it was coming, but it happened anyway.

In my world when something fundamentally changes we update its number and I suppose you could argue that last year I hit version "Neil 2.0", nerdy, but hey, never mind, these are my words, my way of interpreting the world. It represented a major change where tons of old stuff was removed, stuff that was holding me back, stuff that was there for historical reasons that don't matter any more and frankly needed to just go.

Likewise it felt like a bunch of new stuff was added too, things that will prepare me for what it is that God has for me in the future, in the world in which I operate this represents a sufficiently major departure from what was and represents the vision for the future going forwards. A leap forwards in fact.

Did I say I wasn't prepared for what happened last year?

In my world, we call the process of removing some unpleasant bits, adding new bits and sanding off the rough edges “upgrades”, and upgrades aren't random unexpected things, upgrades are planned, they’re carefully thought about in regards to get from where something is to where it needs to be. Upgrades don’t just happen, they’re expected. They’re a process, they’re how change happens.Although you can apply an upgrade unexpectedly, but that doesn't mean it had not been prepared for by the author.

Not falling into the trap this time around, this time I'm going to be ready, this time I'm going to be expectant and prepared for whatever changes come. This time I'm ready to receive something. If last year represented a fundamental shift to a radically changed me, and prepared me for the year I have experienced then I'm building towards what's coming during this week so that I can be prepared for what comes in the future.You can’t want things to change and be unexpectant for them.I’m not prepared to rest, I'm not prepared to stand still. I absolutely refuse to end this week without something having changed me, without something sanding off more of my rough edges and equipping me, re-tooling me for new challenges and new adventures.

That’s what I want you see, I want new adventures, I want to stop living the constrained inside the box life I had been living until last year and I want to expand my horizons, reach farther, run faster. I want don’t want conventional, I don’t want a comfortable ride, but I want an incredible one. So here is me, unsure of what is going to happen, or what is going to affect me, but I'm ready, I'm here and I'm expecting…